Monthly Archives: May 2016

I was feeling a little annoyed because one of my last tasks before we get the keys was to wash two plastic tubs of curtains that we brought over from the States 16 years ago. We finally have a place to use them! But the Great British Weather is simply not cooperating. The skies are grey and I know that as soon as I start the wash cycle, the heavens will open. The curtains really need to be hung to dry and sunshine would be a bonus. But then I remembered that I still had a request outstanding from Michele for the doily calendar as 2 inch circle. I had done a set for her previously, but that was a few Apple OS versions ago. It wasn’t a huge hassle to convert these but it also wasn’t as easy as it has been in the past!

In order to get the text as big as possible, given the limited space, I ended up re-orienting them slightly – and I changed a couple of the colours so the text was more visible over the doily. Ended up with these:

I printed a previous version – I usually do print them to identify anything that I want to fix – with the idea I would punch them as well. Yeah. Right. I looked to the side, to where my 2″ circle punch has been living for YEARS, and…nothing. I looked to the other side and saw…

Oh dear. But Wait! what is that, in the top box, right there and easy to get to? Miracle of miracles, MY 2 INCH PUNCH!

Ha HA!

So you can maybe see that the doilies are slightly differently placed to the image above. That was one of the things that annoyed me a bit, so I fixed it.

These might be good on a card, or as an addition to a larger background. You could chop off the top edge and turn them into a tear-off by adding the line of glue along the top edge of a stack. Maybe a bunch of other things too. If you do use them, share a photo. If you email it to me I might post it, so do say if that is not what you want.

OK so now I have a few phone calls to make. See you back here after the move – and when ever internet in the new house gets sorted. I am going to try calling BT from the line in the house that they are giving me trouble over – hopefully that will sort things. Finger crossed.

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I’ve had a couple of requests for the DOILY calendars. I am taking a leap and saying this is the one people mean:

Here is a 2017 version, colours slightly tweaked, slightly different font – It was driving me crazy because on the screen it looked like the thin lines that define the blocks were missing, and some of the lines under the day strip were darker. I finally printed them and can see that they are fine.

And now I will go on a little break while we move house. I will try to get to any book folding template requests as and when I can, but be aware that if you have a pressing need (prom-posals, anniversaries, etc) it might be best to try elsewhere. At this point I just have no idea how long it will take before I am back working.

I am always happy to convert to a different size, so long as I can do it easily. Drop me a comment if you need a different size and I’ll see what I can do – and when! We get the keys to the house next week and I suspect June and July will be slightly manic. And give the idiocy of BT (yes, yes, I know you UK folk know this already!) I may not have internet for a time. Honestly, how many hours do you have to spend trying to solve a problem? I’m sure the goal is to just get people to throw their hands up in despair and say FINE. Screw it. I’ll have BT Broadband then. But then, if I hadn’t sat on hold for so long yesterday I might not have had time to create these…. swings and roundabouts, right?

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I started playing around with this a little while ago. I decided to streamlining the process by taking the time to create a file that has the month blocks all laid out. I am hoping this keeps me from making silly errors. It also means I can add the date blocks with ease – and change the font quickly too. I usually cycle thru a number of fonts in a number of collections (plain and simple and handwritten being the most used collections) to find the right one, and it is nice to see the whole block converted, to see any oddities that make that font not a good choice.

I have also been playing with quite a bold and bright geometric set but am not 100% happy with that one yet. But I hope this pretty pastel version will appeal. I added three background blocks on the last page, which can be used as filler cards or with a smaller photo added, or as the base for a handmade card. The cards look like this:

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I have been knee-deep in packing boxes, busy de-cluttering our lives, in preparation for the move. Oddly, the new house is bigger than the one we are in now, but the layout is such that things will need to fit in differently. It’s a challenge.

But I did get a comment from a teacher, Wendy, who said she might be interested in doing a book folding project with her students, using the word READ. I had done a couple of READs before, but that was also before I started really s t r e t c h i n g the words out, so when folded they still looked nice and fat. So I’ve done a new set, using many of my favourite fonts. More plain than scripty, but be careful! Some of the “plain” ones are actually more complex than you might think. Count carefully, using one of the methods I suggest here. And while you are at it, take a look at the post that explains why I won’t tell you how many pages you need for your book folding.

The PDF, which has seven versions, one per page, can be downloaded here. Here is a look at the fonts.

You might see a slight ghost of the overlapped areas when viewing the PDF on the screen. That should not happen once you print it.